


psych 101

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explosions, Gen, Minor Character Death, Struggling, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26962852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: whumptober day 11 - prompt: struggling, crying. eddie tries and fails to save a victim, and bobby is there in the aftermath.
Relationships: Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV) & Bobby Nash, Evan “Buck” Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	psych 101

**Author's Note:**

> hi just as a starter i think this sucks and i'm very sorry about it but unfortunately this is all there is so. oh well. anyway i feel like there's not enough of eddie and bobby so i wanted to do a lil bit with their dynamic but sadly i did not do it very well probably. i've not really written a whole lot of bobby before so his dialogue isn't the best but it is what it is :)

The man is trapped, his left leg crushed under several hundred pounds of concrete, courtesy of the collapsed building the 118 is currently trying to deal with. There’s a piece of rebar stuck through his chest as well, affixing him firmly to his position. Eddie is talking to him as he tries desperately to think of some way out of this.

The man - his name is Brian - tells Eddie about his wife, Sonya, and his kid, a girl Christopher’s age. He tells Eddie about how he’d just gotten promoted at work, how he was planning to surprise his family with the news over dinner that night. 

It’s almost hopeless, and Eddie knows it - there’s too much blood on the ground, too much damage. But he’s  _ Eddie  _ and his team is the  _ 118, _ and if anyone can save this man, it’s them. So it’s not quite hopeless. 

Brian keeps talking, encouraged by Eddie, who is doing everything he can to keep him conscious. 

“Clara - that’s my little girl - she loves dinosaurs, and I was going to take her to the natural history museum this weekend. She was so excited,” he says, coughing between the words. Eddie hates the way he’s saying _ was.  _

“You’re going to take Clara to the museum,” he says, and grips Brian’s hand tightly. “Maybe not this weekend, but you will.”

Brian shakes his head. “I don’t think I’m gonna,” he says, and then he passes out. 

Eddie tries for a second to wake him up, knowing it won’t do much good. He needs to get this man out of here, and fast. He radios to Bobby - “Cap, how’re we looking with getting my guy outta here?”

“Diaz, I need you back out here, now,” is Bobby’s only reply, and Eddie hates it. He can’t  _ leave. _

“There’s gotta be something we can do,” he protests. “What if we got the whole team in and lifted the concrete?”

He’s grasping at straws, and they both know it. “We already tried, Eddie, we can’t fit everyone in there, and even if we could, we might not be able to lift it.”

“We can’t just let him die,” Eddie protests, and he hears Buck make a noise of agreement when Bobby returns with the message of, “we are going to do everything we can, but I need you out here  _ right now.” _

Buck’s voice comes through his speaker then, adding, “we’re not giving up, Eddie, but Cap needs us to reconvene for a second.”

Eddie finally agrees, sensing that there’s something important that needs to be addressed, and leaves Brian with the silent promise of,  _ I’ll be back.  _

He makes his way out of the building, running to where he sees the rest of his team gathered around one of the ambulances. 

“Like I was saying,” Bobby begins, as Eddie joins the group, “we’ve just been notified of a possible gas leak in the building. We’re holding off on anything until we get confirmation that all of the gas in the building has been shut down.”

“But what about the people still in the building?” Eddie asks. “We can’t just leave them in there.”

Bobby puts a hand on his shoulder. “Eddie, everyone else has already gotten out. We’re going to do everything we can to get your guy out too, but we  _ have  _ to wait until the gas is shut down.”

“No,” Eddie says. “No, we can’t do that, we can’t just  _ leave  _ him, he’s got a wife and a kid and-”

“Eddie,” Buck interrupts, moving closer to him. There’s this  _ look  _ on his face, a combination of sadness and caring and something similar to pity, and it makes Eddie shudder.

“No,” he says again, “no, we can’t give up on him, we can’t just-”

And then there is a  _ boom, _ and the already-partially-collapsed building is suddenly just...gone. Smoke billows into the sky, and small pieces of debris fall to the earth.

They’re far enough away to avoid being hurt by the explosion, and there’s a brief second where they all just stand there, staring at the burning wreckage of something that had  _ not  _ started out on fire.

Eddie can’t think. And then he can, and he looks into the smoke, and some rational part of his brain that he absolutely  _ hates  _ tells him there’s no way Brian survived, and then the other, larger, and far less rational part of his brain takes over, and he runs towards the fallen building.

Or tries to. He makes it maybe three steps before a pair of arms is wrapping around his torso. He tries wildly to shove them off, pushing and kicking and eventually pleading, “please, you have to let me go, he might be alive, you have to let me go…”

But the arms refuse to let up, no matter how much Eddie struggles and pleads. He hears Bobby’s voice from behind him, but he’s in no state to hear what is being said. “Let me go,” he repeats. “You  _ have  _ to let me go.”

When the arms - Bobby’s arms, he recognizes, dimly - still don’t budge, Eddie resorts to yelling, and he feels  _ angry  _ but doesn’t know why, and he pounds his fists against the arms holding him, and Bobby says something again, something he still can’t hear, doesn’t want to hear, and he looks around and realizes everyone else is gone, back into what’s left of the building.

“Let me go,” he insists, for what must be the hundredth time. “Let me go, everyone else is back in there, let me, I have to find him, I  _ have  _ to.”

And then, abruptly, the noise in his ears stops, and for a second all he can hear is his own breathing, and then Bobby is speaking to him again, and this time he actually hears him.

“He’s gone, Eddie, I’m sorry.”

“No!” Eddie shouts. “No, you don’t know, he could still-”

“Eddie.”

He feels Bobby pull him in closer, and then he’s being turned around so the two of them are face-to-face. He tries once again to free himself in the brief motion, but, somehow, feels Bobby’s arms hold on to him even harder.

“I know, Eddie,” Bobby says, and the certainty in his voice sucks the fight completely out of him, all at once.

He goes half-limp in Bobby’s arms, his hands dropping from where they’d been trying to push himself away off of Bobby’s chest. He stands there and refuses to look at Bobby’s face, and that little rational part of his mind is asking,  _ why does this hurt so much, other people have died before, _ but the thought leaves his brain the second one of Bobby’s hands lets go of him and rests itself on the back of his head, instead. 

He lets Bobby keep holding him, lets his head be gently pulled up against Bobby’s shoulder, lets a gentle hand rub circles in his back, and thinks for a second that Bobby must have been, and must now be, a really good father. 

Then Bobby’s voice is back in his ears, saying, “it’s okay, Eddie, you did everything you could,” and part of Eddie wants to argue, wants to say that there was more he could have done, more he  _ should  _ have done, but the second he opens his mouth a sob forces its way out, and then he is crying on his Captain’s shoulder, something which, in another circumstance, he’d have been absolutely mortified by. But the pain is just  _ too much, _ and everything surrounding him is soft and telling him that it’s okay, that everyone has those times when something hits them harder than they think it should, that he can break.

So he does, feeling as though his whole being has been briefly split open, feeling every single pent-up emotion he’s been carrying around with him spill out of him, mingling with the grief and panic brought about by the explosion. Then it’s  _ him  _ grabbing onto Bobby with all the strength he has left in him, crumpling his shirt in tightly-balled fists, tears running down his cheeks and soaking into Bobby’s shoulder, his body shaking with the force of all the emotions being pulled out of it. 

He tries to choke out words - an explanation, a plea, he doesn’t know - but they get tangled up in his throat, and Bobby tells him not to try to speak, not right now, and keeps repeating that  _ it’s okay, it’s okay, _ keeps holding onto him, and it’s  _ not  _ okay and  _ he’s  _ not okay, and everything hurts and he’s not sure how much of it is from this call and how much of it was already inside of him, and he can’t stop crying, and for once he doesn’t force himself to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this!!! i had a long evening of work when i didn't think i had to go in so that is why this was so bad but i will write something better tomorrow i swear


End file.
